As the war turned against King Aegon in the riverlands, the greens raised a great host in the Reach beneath the banner of Lord Ormund Hightower of Oldtown, and with it marched Prince Daeron Targaryen, the king's young brother, upon his blue she-dragon Tessarion. Their road to King's Landing lay through the town of Tumbleton, seat of House Footly, which Queen Rhaenyra had garrisoned against them with river lords, the Winter Wolves under old Roderick Dustin, and a mixed strength of some nine thousand men. The defenders were confident, for word had reached them that two of the queen's own dragonriders were riding hard to reinforce the town.
That confidence proved their undoing. The two riders were Hard Hugh Hammer upon the great bronze dragon Vermithor and Ulf the White upon Silverwing, base-born dragonseeds raised up by the queen, and both had already resolved to betray her for gold and glory in Aegon's cause. When they came to Tumbleton they turned their dragons not upon the greens but upon the very host they had been sent to save. Two grown dragons breathing fire into a packed and unsuspecting camp wrought a slaughter beyond telling; the black lines dissolved into panic and flame. Old Roderick Dustin, Roddy the Ruin, charged through the chaos and very nearly cut down Hard Hugh himself before he was slain. The defenders were broken utterly, and the two turncloaks were remembered ever after as the Two Betrayers.
Tumbleton fell, and the victorious greens gave the town over to fire and pillage in one of the ugliest sacks of the war, the townsfolk put to the sword and the flame while the soldiery quarreled over plunder. For King Aegon it was a great victory that reopened the road to his capital; for Queen Rhaenyra it was a grievous blow struck by hands she had trusted. Yet the greens did not press on. Their host lingered amid the ruins it had made, gorged on loot and riven by the ambitions of the very dragonriders who had won the day, and in that fateful delay were sown the seeds of the second and bloodier battle that would soon follow.